Oil Industry Brazil

Soldiers occupied four state-owned oil refineries in a government attempt to break a 22-day strike by petroleum workers. Under orders from President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, hundreds of soldiers in tanks and other vehicles moved in before dawn at refineries in the states of Sao Paulo and Parana in southern Brazil, the region hardest hit by the strike. An army spokesman said there was no violence.

A crippled Brazilian oil platform sank into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and started spilling oil Tuesday, five days after explosions on the giant rig killed 10 workers and damaged the finances and image of Brazil's state oil company. Despite efforts to save the P-36 platform, one of the world's largest, the 40-story rig tipped and sank rapidly about 10:30 a.m.

Faced with a government threat of mass dismissals, most of Brazil's 50,000 oil workers voted Friday to end a 31-day strike of the state oil monopoly Petrobras. A majority of 21 worker assemblies voted to follow the recommendation of the Oil Workers Federation to drop all of their demands and return to work. The longest strike in Petrobras' 32-year history began to unravel on Thursday, when the government threatened the strikers with dismissals.

After working around the clock to save a crippled oil rig, crews Sunday managed to keep its massive platform from sinking, oil company officials said. Explosions and a fire damaged the rig Thursday, killing at least two workers. Eight others who are missing were presumed dead. The platform is about 80 miles off Brazil's Atlantic coast. Environmentalists are worried that the platform could sink, spilling 400,000 gallons of crude oil and diesel fuel into the sea.

Brazil Oil Workers Strike: The Brazil Federation of Oil Workers--estimated to include up to 80% of the nation's 50,000 oil workers--launched a strike that crippled operations at eight of the nation's 10 refineries and threatened the country with shortages of cooking gas and diesel fuel. Brazil refines the entire 1.2 million barrels of oil it consumes daily. Newspapers reported that the strike caught Petrobras, the government oil monopoly, with low stocks.

The Brazilian government auctioned off Copesul, a state-owned petrochemical concern. The government fetched $832.3 million for the company, 29% more than the officially set price, said a spokeswoman for the Rio de Janeiro stock exchange. Copesul was the 10th company to be privatized by the administration of President Fernando Collor de Mello. Empetro, a consortium from Southern Brazil, was the biggest buyer, taking 38% of the shares offered, the spokeswoman said.

The country's 10 state-run oil refineries were expected to grind to a halt within 24 hours as union workers went on strike. Oil unions called the strike in support of a claim for a 64.8% pay raise to make up for inflation. The state-run oil company, Petrobras, offered 21.47%. The strike is likely to disrupt gasoline exports to the United States. Brazil is America's second-biggest foreign gasoline supplier.

Tens of thousands of oil refinery workers went on strike Friday and threatened to bring Brazil's 10 refineries to a standstill unless their wages are raised, officials said. It was the latest in a wave of labor unrest caused by a sputtering economy under President Jose Sarney. Durval Gomes, one of the directors of the Rio de Janeiro Refinery Workers Union, said strikers are demanding a 154% pay increase and that Petrobras offered 67.27%.

Aiming to become an energy exporter within a decade, Brazil on Tuesday began a historic and highly anticipated auction of oil exploration rights, the first time in half a century that foreign companies have been given a crack at developing energy here. Although it has dramatically raised its oil production and reserves in the 1990s, Brazil still imports more than a third of the 1.9 million barrels of oil it consumes daily.

Navy divers, engineers and U.S. consultants raced to salvage a crippled offshore oil rig Saturday despite a warning that the huge platform could sink in less than two days. The 30 specialists entered the partly submerged Brazilian rig, one of the world's largest, for the first time since explosions and fire Thursday forced its evacuation, state oil giant Petrobras said.

Union leaders and government officials accused Brazil's national oil company Friday of failing to take precautions that could have prevented an accident that killed up to 10 workers and crippled one of the world's largest offshore oil platforms. Three explosions devastated the 40-story platform in the Roncador oil field in the Atlantic Ocean about 80 miles from the coast and 120 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro on Thursday. It is unclear what caused the explosions.

Explosions and fire ravaged the world's largest offshore oil rig Thursday, killing at least one worker, weakening the nation's currency and shaking its biggest company. Three blasts shortly after midnight rocked the Brazilian rig, which weighs about 32,000 tons and stands 40 stories high. The platform is 75 miles off Brazil's southeastern Atlantic coast in the Campos Basin, northeast of Rio de Janeiro. It accounted for more than three-quarters of the 1.

Hundreds of workers dug runoff channels and strung barriers across a river in southern Brazil on Tuesday in a race to contain the country's worst oil spill in 25 years. By afternoon, an oily black stain had moved about 25 miles downstream from the Getulio Vargas oil refinery in Araucaria, where a burst pipe spewed more than 1 million gallons of crude oil into a tributary of the Iguacu River on Sunday.

MACAE, Brazil Prudhoe Bay, the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico . . . Campos Basin? As global oil hot spots go, the deep-water oil field just off shore here doesn't conjure up images of a black gold bonanza. But Unocal, Texaco, Schlumberger, Shell and other giants are funneling big money through this palm-lined beach town in hopes that it will someday be synonymous with other fabled oil finds. And industry insiders like the odds of it happening.

Unocal was a winning bidder in the second day of a historic Brazilian oil lease auction in which exploration rights were sold to foreign companies for the first time since the energy industry was nationalized in 1954. Shortly before the auction closed Wednesday, Brazil had raised about $184 million from the sale of 20 leases. Companies are expected to invest $25 billion or more over the next 10 years in Brazilian oil.

After working around the clock to save a crippled oil rig, crews Sunday managed to keep its massive platform from sinking, oil company officials said. Explosions and a fire damaged the rig Thursday, killing at least two workers. Eight others who are missing were presumed dead. The platform is about 80 miles off Brazil's Atlantic coast. Environmentalists are worried that the platform could sink, spilling 400,000 gallons of crude oil and diesel fuel into the sea.

Explosions and fire ravaged the world's largest offshore oil rig Thursday, killing at least one worker, weakening the nation's currency and shaking its biggest company. Three blasts shortly after midnight rocked the Brazilian rig, which weighs about 32,000 tons and stands 40 stories high. The platform is 75 miles off Brazil's southeastern Atlantic coast in the Campos Basin, northeast of Rio de Janeiro. It accounted for more than three-quarters of the 1.

Aiming to become an energy exporter within a decade, Brazil on Tuesday began a historic and highly anticipated auction of oil exploration rights, the first time in half a century that foreign companies have been given a crack at developing energy here. Although it has dramatically raised its oil production and reserves in the 1990s, Brazil still imports more than a third of the 1.9 million barrels of oil it consumes daily.

The House of Deputies on Wednesday approved a constitutional amendment to open Brazil's oil industry to private and foreign investment, a step that economists and political leaders said foreshadows a dramatic leap forward for a bundle of economic and social reforms that could transform South America's largest economy.